Holland: River most important asset to promote

Two candidates have been covering two major cities and a lot of rural Arkansas countryside in the Senate District 9 race.

Republican candidate Bruce Holland lives in Greenwood and currently serves as a state senator in in southern Sebastian County. This year he’s running for a new Senate seat that not only encompasses his county, but takes on a new challenger: Tracy Pennartz of Fort Smith.

Senate District 9 has new lines and includes Crawford, Sebastian and Scott counties.

Holland said he is focused on making the River Valley an economic engine for the region.

“For Senate District 9, we have to sell what we have here, and I think the most important thing we have to promote right now is the river,” Holland said. “Get the river certified to a 12-foot draft and then work on the slack water port. Make this area, which is the center of the nation, a shipping port for the rest of the nation.”

Holland said another big issue is how the state is going to cover Medicaid.

“We’ve got to get the facts,” he said. “We’ve got to know exactly how long that federal money is going to be there and then if it’s there for only three years and we’re facing a $400 million shortfall today, what’s that going to be like in three years? We certainly cannot put something into place for people and then jerk it out from underneath them three years later.”

Holland said a lot of the state’s budget goes toward education. He said reforms can be made to make the system work better.

“I’m challenging the superintendents in the district to tell me what they are mandated to do, that they’re just doing because they are mandated to do it,” he said. “If they’re not getting a benefit from it, well let’s get rid of that mandate and free their money up to do something that does work.”

Holland said if he is re-elected, he will try to protect landowners rights while serving in the state senate.

Holland faces Rep. Tracy Pennartz in the general election.

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